How to see whom I am at war with???

kohlerj · #1 September 28th, 2004, 09:13 AM

Cheers, thanks for the quick reply.
Im keeping all my appendages crossed that we will get it in the near future. Any hope of another patch? The game isnt excactly new and in a serious need of patching...

Edi · #2 September 28th, 2004, 09:34 AM

Are you kidding? They've already put out several patches that have fixed most of the outstanding issues, and there are not that many really broken things.

Most notable ones that I know of are the cheat detection false alarms, three buggy items (two of them completely broken) and one minor and two serious monster bugs (one of which breaks sea-targeted Imprint Souls), and all of these will be fixed in the next patch.

Furthermore, it's just two guys who are doing it all, on their spare time, and the game is less buggy than almost anything that comes out these days, so cut IW some slack, will you?

As for remembering who you are in war with: In MP you should be able to keep track of it, with the assumption that as soon as your allies have more profit from turning on you than remaining allies, you will be fair game, and in SP it doesn't really matter, because you will be at war with every AI nation by default and their declarations mean diddly-squat (unless Abysia, Marignonm or Caelum, in which case you might start seeing a lot of Fires from Afar or Seeking Arrow attacks).

It would be nice to have the diplomatic status marker, though, but in a game of "There can be only One!" diplomacy is relegated to secondary role by necessity and default.

Edi

kohlerj · #3 September 28th, 2004, 09:48 AM

Hey fellow Finn!!! Are you taking sides with the swedes?

I didnt mean that anything is broken, Im still so new that I havent noticed anything amiss except the issue I mentioned.
I think its amazing that only these small developers with a few ppl working on their games have proper "maintenance" after a game has been published. Its easy to see which ones work out of sheer dedication and which ones do it purely for the money.
Im not bashing IW, just curious.

Edi · #4 September 28th, 2004, 10:05 AM

Sorry to have been so harsh, but the comment in your previous post came across in rather negative light. What you are talking about is more a request for a new feature than fixing something that is not working as it should. I actually added it (or a variation) into the September Wishlist thread.

As for not noticing anything more while new to the game, you shouldn't really, because there has been constant feedback for a long while and almost all the easily visible real issues have been ironed out, especially with patch 2.14.

Edi

Gandalf Parker · #5 September 28th, 2004, 11:20 AM

Quote:

kohlerj said:
Cheers, thanks for the quick reply.
Im keeping all my appendages crossed that we will get it in the near future. Any hope of another patch? The game isnt excactly new and in a serious need of patching...

Oops, thats going to cause a rumble.

Patches have been pretty common since the very first days of Dom1, and very few items in patches have ever needed to fix something that was "broken" (game crashing or commands that didnt work, that type of thing).

There are many things in the game which people say need "fixed" but not much agreement on what those are. So they all come down to being more of a "please can we have this" type of thing. But the devs are here in the forum and do see the conversations. The nicer requests do seem to make it in within a patch or two. Each patch seems to have about 1-change-a-day worth of work in it which is pretty good for a couple of guys who have other jobs.

Arryn · #6 September 28th, 2004, 11:34 AM

Quote:

Gandalf Parker said:
The nicer requests do seem to make it in within a patch or two.

That's not quite true. For example, polite requests for the ability to use arrow keys for scrolling, and some sort of indicator for who you're at war with, have been made by numerous people for many months, yet we've not seen these requests acted upon (yet). Many other requests have been implemented, but they are mostly those that do not involve UI changes (even minor ones) or that have an overwhelming number of people clamoring for them. The devs themselves admit that any change that involves the UI is less likely to be acted upon than, say, adding a mod command (no matter how nicely someone asks for it).

Peter Ebbesen · #7 September 28th, 2004, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Arryn said:

Quote:

Gandalf Parker said:
The nicer requests do seem to make it in within a patch or two.

That's not quite true. For example, polite requests for the ability to use arrow keys for scrolling, and some sort of indicator for who you're at war with, have been made by numerous people for many months, yet we've not seen these requests acted upon (yet). Many other requests have been implemented, but they are mostly those that do not involve UI changes (even minor ones) or that have an overwhelming number of people clamoring for them. The devs themselves admit that any change that involves the UI is less likely to be acted upon than, say, adding a mod command (no matter how nicely someone asks for it).

Nobody, but nobody, enjoys writing UI code* Even fewer enjoy changing it or rewriting it except in the direst circumstances with the clearest benefits.

* Counterexamples are rumoured to exist, but until an actual sighting has been made they will be assumed non-existent.

Arryn · #8 September 28th, 2004, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Peter Ebbesen said:
Nobody, but nobody, enjoys writing UI code* Even fewer enjoy changing it or rewriting it except in the direst circumstances with the clearest benefits.

* Counterexamples are rumoured to exist, but until an actual sighting has been made they will be assumed non-existent.

Assume all you want. *I* enjoy writing UI code, and have done so since the late 80s. What's more, the part of writing UI code I most enjoy is precisely that which you claim the fewest enjoy: that of tweaking existing code. Moreover, I particularly enjoy rewriting other people's (bad) UI code.

Your (false) assertions are refuted.

Peter Ebbesen · #9 September 28th, 2004, 03:07 PM

Quote:

Arryn said:
Assume all you want. *I* enjoy writing UI code, and have done so since the late 80s. What's more, the part of writing UI code I most enjoy is precisely that which you claim the fewest enjoy: that of tweaking existing code. Moreover, I particularly enjoy rewriting other people's (bad) UI code.

Knew that that would get a rise out of you.

Quote:

Your (false) assertions are refuted.

And impressively fast too. Well, it is my own fault for not specifically limiting the class of programmers to games programmers.

Joking apart, it is my experience with games programmers that many tend to think of time writing and tweaking the UI as a necessary evil, when what they REALLY want to spend time on is having the Orc kill the Elf in a sensible fashion rather than having it running into walls, dying of starvation, or causing fatal crashes when you least expect it. Everybody acknowledges that good UI is important, but as good UI (as opposed to "sufficiently good to work") is one of the hardest things to do right (assuming you have a decent spread of target audience for the game) and a time-consuming one as well, it is common to prefer spending time on tweaking game-engine code to see immediate results than on interface enhancements that may also require designer input and new graphics and often present minimal immediate benefit to the programmer. (In sufficiently small game companies the graphics designer might also be the programmer. In that case expect peculiarities)

Which is why sufficiently large games companies hire the dedicated souls who like to do it and hand responsibility over to people who are actually good at it, dedicating their time to interface issues rather than time sharing it with game-engine or component construction, while smaller companies have to make do with local talent - and quite often suffer from it.

Dominions 2 is a good case in point. Its graphics interface, severe micromanagement tedium in the mid-to-late-game, and in many ways unresponsive interface practically screams "written by programmers for programmers (and geeks)". As such, it is to be expected that the programmers of Dominions 2 prefer to do as little UI tweaking (which can take a lot of time for little tangible benefit to their own enjoyment) while instead tweaking spells, units, items, and killing off occasional bugs.

Arryn · #10 September 28th, 2004, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Peter Ebbesen said:
Knew that that would get a rise out of you.

And impressively fast too.

Careful, lest I set one of my fawning, yet disgruntled and reluctant minions upon thee. (I'm sure the minion in question knows of whom I speak.)

Your reasoned defense is a nice save on your part, after cramming your foot so far down your throat you must have gotten a tummy-ache.

As for geeky game designers prefering tweaks other than to UI as being more enjoyable, that's such a short-sighted attitude. It too readily dismisses the annoying tedium of having to constantly deal with awkwardnesses that rapidly detract from the overall pleasure of other aspects of a game. Inconsistent controls, missing controls (Dom's lack of arrow-key support), poorly placed controls (HoI's tiny '+' controls placed dangerously close to delete controls), controls that aren't smooth (HoI's jumping sliders), controls that require excessive clicking (transferring large amounts of items/cash in Fallout), such things quickly earn the ire of all but truly rabid fans of a game.